


Years Unto Years

by sageness



Category: Canadian 6 Degrees, Slings & Arrows
Genre: Canon - TV, F/M, M/M, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-09
Updated: 2011-10-09
Packaged: 2017-10-24 10:51:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/262653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageness/pseuds/sageness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Midway through the Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet festival season at New Burbage, Geoffrey and Darren reminisce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Years Unto Years

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://petra.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**petra**](http://petra.dreamwidth.org/) for the ds_noticeboard mini-exchange. Many thanks to [](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=ande)[**ande**](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=ande) for the speedy beta and to Hazel for all the cheerleading!

  


  
"You're here late," Geoffrey said, knocking twice on the open door of Darren's office.

Its occupant was leaning back in his chair, monstrous boots and leather-clad legs propped up on his desk. He opened his eyes slowly and gave Geoffrey a baleful look.

Geoffrey tried not to laugh. "I thought you'd be at the bar with everyone else. I think even Nahum's gone home."

"No," Darren sighed. "I daresay they're quite capable of getting drunk without me by now." The festival was halfway through its twelve weeks of performances, and the casts of Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet could generally be found in the theater, at the bar, or at Yong's at any given hour of the day or night. "Although it's quite true that a little alcohol never goes amiss around here." He swung his legs down and pulled a bottle out of his desk drawer. Then, after a slight pause, two glasses. "Here, in the spirit of being, ah, peaceable colleagues again."

There wasn't a second chair, so Geoffrey propped himself against the doorframe. "Colleagues," he agreed, and sipped the scotch Darren poured him. "So, what's wrong?"

Darren drank deep and shook his head.

Then Geoffrey saw the old photo of Darren from Godspell propped up on the desk. "God, we were young then."

"Twenty-five years ago."

"You were almost blond," Geoffrey said. "It looked ridiculous."

"That was the year they dressed you exclusively in loincloths and codpieces. Remember when you had bronchitis? We didn't sleep for weeks with all your coughing."

Geoffrey chuckled. "I remember your mother's chicken soup." He pushed off the wall. "Come on, let's go find a couch."

"Don’t want to move," Darren said, looking up at him with typical overblown misery.

Geoffrey grabbed one of Darren's bony wrists and pulled. "And I'm too damned old to sit on your floor. Come on."

He led Darren down the hall to the storage room. "You aren't still living in here, are you?" Darren asked as Geoffrey collapsed on the red velvet couch last used in The Importance of Being Ernest. "I thought you and Ellen were—" He waved a hand in the air. "There's a betting pool on whether there's a wedding on the horizon."

Geoffrey groaned, wrested the bottle away from Darren, and refilled his glass as Darren shoved him over and sat. "You're betting against, I take it?"

Darren laughed. "Of course. I was there at the beginning, after all."

Geoffrey sighed. "That you were." He sipped more scotch. "Before things went to shit."

"It frightens me to think of Godspell as 'the good old days'," said Darren with a wry smile.

Geoffrey laughed. "You were adorable in that costume, with your giant stuffed fish."

"Your little leather breeches were, ah, memorable."

Geoffrey snorted. "They distracted people from my singing, I guess. That's what Marlene said at the time, at least."

"You still remember that?" Darren leaned back against the sofa. "Good times."

"Good orgasms, if nothing else," said Geoffrey, feeling wistful.

Darren stretched extravagantly. "At the risk of quoting an egregious cliché, aren't all orgasms good orgasms?"

Geoffrey gazed into his glass and took another long sip. "Yes, well. I was thinking of quantity over quality, but—" He waved a hand.

"Ah. So, I presume the fair Ellen is off with Henry Breedlove again tonight?"

"You know," Geoffrey stopped and made a face. "I didn't actually ask."

"No?" Darren sounded mildly curious.

He shrugged. "She and I are stuck together, always have been. Just like Oliver and I were. It doesn't really matter if she is with Henry tonight or not."

"Huh." A silence fell, which Geoffrey found surprisingly comfortable, given their history. After a while, Darren tugged at his arm until Geoffrey was slumped comfortably against him. "Remember this?"

Geoffrey sighed, more content than he wanted to admit aloud. "Your elbow's still as sharp as ever."

"So lie sideways."

"On this couch? You're funny. We might have fit when we were at university, but we're neither of us twenty anymore." He didn't turn sideways, but he wriggled a little more into Darren's warm and solid space.

"Refill," Darren demanded, waving his glass, and Geoffrey reached over for the bottle.

"How drunk are we getting?" he asked, suddenly aware that the mood between them had passed from maudlin to nostalgically fond. As much and as long as he'd hated Darren, he'd never forgotten how much their worlds had revolved around one another once upon a time.

Darren held his gaze. Then suddenly the glasses and bottle were gone. "Geoffrey, if you want to have sex with me, you really should just say so already." He looked a little exasperated, but a lot amused.

"Christ, um." Geoffrey swallowed nervously and looked around the storage room, more than a little worried he would see Oliver but he was thankfully absent. Sex would be great. Sex with Darren, maybe not. But if he went home to Ellen's, would he find her there with Henry, having a friendly and no-not-at-all vindictive fuck at his expense?

"I—" Geoffrey watched his own hand come comfortably to rest on Darren's thigh. "I don't know. Everything's really messed up right now, I'm sorry."

Darren sighed enormously and stroked Geoffrey's cheek. His fingers were still as soft as ever, and strange in their easy familiarity. "I wasn't going to tell you this because it wasn't any of my business, but I saw her with Henry at the bar a couple of hours ago. Practically everyone there was making out with someone, and I couldn't take the—" He broke off. "It was very lonely, watching them all – you know how Romeo and Juliet tends to infect people like a virus – and so I came back here."

"Shit." Geoffrey took a breath. "I knew it." He was about to stand up – he really needed to pace – but Darren took his arm and pulled him close again.

"Stop. Remember when she used to throw you at me and tell you to get it out of your system? You remember that, yes? Or did the doctors zap that part of your brain to oblivion?"

"Smartass." Geoffrey sighed, hyperaware of Darren's body along his side. "Yes, I remember."

"Good. Then you'll remember that, as you dramatically reminded me a couple of months ago, you and I were happy then. We were happy. I know it's a sad revelation, but ever since you gave me that photograph I keep coming back to it: 1980. The spring of that absurd musical. The terrible staging. All the fucking in the park."

"And in the apartment, and in your dad's car." He laughed softly, remembering the contortions involved. So much had seemed possible.

Darren took his hand and stood up. "All right, then. My place, come on."

Geoffrey followed him to his feet automatically, but stopped, bracing himself on Darren's waist. "It's been a long time. I mean, you and I hate each other."

Darren kissed him. Then he kissed him again, longer, and Geoffrey remembered spending whole days in bed with Darren, arguing over text and blocking and theory and only breaking to have more sex. They'd been so young and passionate. Oliver hadn't taken over Geoffrey's life yet.

"Stop fucking thinking," Darren said, tightening his arms around him. "Focus on the orgasms."

Geoffrey tried to shrug. "It's just a lot of water under the bridge."

"I'd forgotten what a morose drunk you are. Come, we need a change of venue – and as soon as humanly possible." Darren took Geoffrey's arm and led him bodily to the door.

"You're serious?" Geoffrey said, because, fucking hell. Back then, it hadn't taken long for them to make the trip from boyfriends to mortal enemies, but hell's bells.

Darren went a little pink and scratched the back of his head. "This will sound embarrassingly trite, Geoffrey, for which I will blame the alcohol, but this is how it is: I liked being happy. And I happen to like kissing you. I always did, even when you were being insufferable." He kissed Geoffrey again, as if it needed proving, and Geoffrey felt himself begin to grin.

"I want," Geoffrey said against Darren's mouth.

Darren kissed him once more. "You, me, and my bed. As soon as we can get there."

"But—"

"The rest will sort itself out later," Darren said, and he grabbed Geoffrey's hand and took him home.

  


  


  
  


  


 


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